Death Of A Dream Maker (28 page)

As soon as the figures had dragged Casey's body
farther away, Auntie Lil left the wall and silently slipped through
the crowded production floor, making her way around the
sewing-machine tables and rolling racks of supplies. She tried hard
to control her body and breathing, but the effort of restricting
her movements so tightly proved exhausting. She was panting heavily
by the time she reached the small circular aisle that marked the
beginning of the room's center ring.

She forced herself to stop breathing so she could
better hear. The floor was completely quiet. They had finished
their task with Casey. Was she even still alive? Auntie Lil didn't
want to think of the alternative. She rested, still listening, then
began to search with her hands, hoping to find the pattern tables.
At last she touched the smooth plastic of a cutting surface. She
inched closer and methodically palmed the table again and again,
searching for the oversized shears. She had found the cutting table
adjacent to one of the large pattern machines. She avoided the cold
steel of its sides, shunning the cruelly sharp edges of its metal
cutting blades. It was the most dangerous piece of machinery in the
shop, functioning as a combination giant vise and cookie cutter. It
was capable of slicing through more than a foot of stacked cloth.
Human flesh would be no obstacle at all. She had to get away from
it quickly.

Auntie Lil swung around and caught her shoe against
the cutting-machine leg, making a soft clunk in the darkness. She
groped frantically behind her for the giant scissors, no longer
concerned with silence. She felt boxes of pins, pieces of chalk,
and the crisp edges of tracing tissue. Where were the shears?

A crash echoed through the silence, followed by a
muttered oath and a cascade of smaller crashes. Her attackers had
knocked over a rolling table of supplies, allowing Auntie Lil to
pinpoint their location. They were on the edge of the outer circle,
moving steadily toward her, not more than ten yards away.

She inched to her right, feeling behind her for
guidance, probing frantically for the oversized shears. There was
no way she could defend herself against two of them without a
weapon. Not even stabbing at them could hold them off for long.

They were moving right toward her. She could feel it.
And then she heard them reach the inner walkway. They didn't bother
to conceal their footsteps. They had tried the lights without
success and now they were angry. The heavy thuds of their tread
moved briskly toward her, oddly in rhythm with the pounding of her
heart. She began to run, banging into pattern tables as she
scrambled away. She swept a whole arm across the tabletop, sending
metal objects and spools of thread crashing to the floor. She
dashed forward again and heard the scrambling thuds of bodies
slipping. At least she was making it hard for them to reach her.
She swept another cutting table clean, the contents tumbling
noisily to the floor. But it only partially obscured the narrow
walkway and the effort was ultimately useless. She would soon
complete the circle. If her attackers had any brains, they would
split up, change directions, and trap her in the middle. She had to
come up with a better plan.

Her hands closed on a pair of the giant shears. She
gripped the weapon and waved it in front of her like a sword. If
they came after her, she'd at least leave her mark.

The footsteps stopped. Her heart was pounding so
loudly it seemed as if it echoed in the cavernous room.

But no, it was not her heart. It was a rhythmic
thumping from the far wall, backed by the outraged yells of Casey
trapped inside a closet. She was throwing herself against the metal
door, bellowing and enraged, hoping to force her way out.

The footsteps began again, then hesitated. Auntie Lil
could feel them turn back, perhaps wondering if Casey could
escape.

She had to act now.

Darting forward, Auntie Lil thrust the giant scissors
into the darkness, throwing all of her weight behind the initial
jab. The point caught one of the assailants, and Auntie Lil forced
herself to push forward. The shock of absorbing flesh vibrated down
the shears and shot straight into the core of her heart. She felt
sick, but knew that she mustn't stop. They were going to kill her.
She must try to kill them first.

The room exploded in sound. The stabbed attacker
screamed hideously, the piercing sound rising and reverberating
like the screech of a wounded animal. The cohort began to scream as
well. Auntie Lil withdrew the shears and jabbed again at the awful
sounds. The pair panicked. One fell. The figure scrambled up and
began to hurry backward.

Behind them, the metal closet door flew open, banging
against the wall with a clang. Casey shot out of the closet,
roaring at the top of her lungs, screaming louder and louder as she
drew near. Auntie Lil couldn't see her, but could hear the force of
Casey's anger in the strange cries that rent the air. Her
terrifying howls struck fear even in Auntie Lil's heart.

“You're dead! Both of you!” Casey screamed, crashing
through the room, pushing tables aside, sending racks flying over
in her fury. She bored through the darkness like an avenging angel,
her terrible war cry splitting the air.

“I've stabbed one!” Auntie Lil shouted, mostly to let
Casey know where she was. She hadn't survived two attackers only to
be hurt by Casey in the darkness. “I think one of them is
bleeding,” she warned Casey. “The floor may be slippery.”

“Both of them are going to be bleeding soon,” Casey
screeched. In the brief silence that followed, a faint whistling
could be heard. Casey was whirling something over her head.

Neither attacker stuck around to find out what. They
rushed past Auntie Lil, shoving her to the floor as they sprinted
toward the fire door.

“They're getting away,” Auntie Lil shouted. “Get
them! But don't step on me.”

Her warning was superfluous: Casey had already dashed
past. Like a maddened pack of hounds on the trail of a fox, Casey
had sensed that the battle had turned in her favor. She was now
pursuing her prey unto the death.

“Stop!” Auntie Lil screamed into the darkness. She
regained her footing and scrambled after Casey. “Stop, Casey! Stop!
You've scared them away. That's enough. There are two of them. Let
them go.”

A tremendous banging erupted from the far wall. Casey
had reached the fire door only to find that the attackers had
locked it from the stairwell. She beat furiously on the metal
surface with her makeshift club. The sound echoed madly through the
room.

By the time Auntie Lil reached her, Casey's breathing
was as tortured as if she had just run a marathon.

“Are you all right?” Auntie Lil asked. “Did they hurt
you?”

“I'm fine,” Casey answered between clenched teeth.
“I'm just very, very mad.”

 The two pieces of greasy pizza leaking on
Thomas Brody's desk had made T.S. and Herbert hungry. Ignoring his
cholesterol count, T.S. suggested an early dinner, then recklessly
ordered extra pepperoni. It was worth the risk at
Tony's,
a
take-out joint hidden on the outskirts of Chinatown. Auntie Lil had
discovered it several years before. Tony was disappointed to see
only T.S. and Herbert for dinner—had Auntie Lil been along, the
bill would have doubled. The two men ate carefully, mindful of the
fact that they were wearing their most expensive suits.

“Feel like tackling the youngest nephew?” T.S. asked
Herbert when they had polished off a large pie. Herbert did not
answer at first. He was staring out the window with a blissful
expression, his neatly manicured hands folded contentedly over his
modestly rounded stomach.

“Herbert?” T.S. asked more loudly. “Are you with
me?”

“Sorry. That was a most delicious meal. I was just
thinking of how I never dreamed of such treats as a young man in
Singapore.” He smiled happily. Herbert's very best quality—and he
had many fine ones—was that he never took anything for granted. Not
a pizza, not a sunset, and, certainly, never a friend.

“Shall we swing by Greenwich Village and try to
question Seth Rosenbloom?” T.S. asked. “Max's youngest nephew? You
don't have to go with me. I'm not sure what the situation will
be.”

Herbert nodded. “I would be pleased to accompany
you.”

“Let me just try to reach Aunt Lil first,” T.S.
said.

Auntie Lil had not yet succumbed to the lure of an
answering machine. T.S. waited patiently through nine rings before
he gave up. “They're still out nosing around,” he reported to
Herbert.

“Then we shall do the same.”

Seth Rosenbloom was not home. According to Casey, he
lived on the third floor of a small brownstone nestled back from a
quiet corner in the West Village. T.S. rang the bell twice without
success and was about to turn away when a window opened far above
him with a bang. A slender young man with a shock of curly blond
hair leaned out and yelled, “Intercom's broken. You rang?”

“I'm looking for Seth Rosenbloom,” T.S. shouted back,
glancing around to see if anyone had stopped to listen. No one
cared. There were far more interesting things going on in the
Village than this.

“Are you two lawyers?” the young man bellowed
hopefully.

“Heavens, no,” T.S. called back. It was a Charles
Dickens day, no doubt about it. First, the rolltop desks and marble
floors of Sterling and Sterling, and now, here he was, shouting up
from a cobblestoned street at a mop-topped young man hanging out of
a third-floor brownstone window. “We're friends of his uncle Max,”
he added. He'd be damned if he'd go into details at the top of his
lungs.

“You're here about the money, then?” the young man
crowed happily. “I heard he left old Seth a bundle.”

That was enough for T.S. “Yes, I'm here about the
money,” he said. In a way it was the truth. “Where is he?”

“We had a fight. He's around the corner sulking at
the
Swan Dive.”
The young man pointed west and Herbert and
T.S. dutifully followed his directions on foot. Grady drove by them
slowly, searching for a street wide enough to park the limo. The
Swan Dive
was on a lovely—and expensive—side street. Ivy
grew in thick cascades down the sides of stone buildings hosting
charming first-floor shops that offered well-heeled customers
antiques, jewelry, and curios. At seven o'clock, the street was
crowded with well-groomed men and women chatting happily among
themselves as they headed off to the many restaurants, pubs, and
movie theaters in the lively area. The West Village was one section
of Manhattan that had managed to stave off the office growth that
had plagued New York City in the eighties. It had remained
determinedly residential and was populated by writers, artists,
heirs, and leftover Bohemians of all sexual preferences. Plus
out-of-towners who visited to gawk at the men who walked happily
hand in hand down its streets. But T.S. had been a New Yorker long
enough to understand that the West Village had nothing at all to do
with being gay—it had to do with having money. Lots and lots of
money.

“For a kid just out of law school, he's doing okay to
live around here,” T.S. observed. The
Swan Dive
was a corner
pub at the end of the block, marked by a swinging wooden sign that
featured a swan in full flight. Despite its name, it was no dive.
It was a small but cheerful piano bar, heavy on the wood paneling
and easy on the lights. An enormous baby grand dominated the far
end of a rectangular space. There was just enough room beside it
for a tiny stage and standing microphone. A small sign propped on
an easel atop the piano read
Open Mike Night.

T.S. clamped a determined smile on his face. Open
mike night meant that while he was questioning Seth, a steady
parade of would-be singers would take to the stage, bellowing out
tired show tunes with varying degrees of talent. As T.S. revered
show tunes, it was going to be an excruciating experience.

“After you,” Herbert announced, waving T.S. inside.
They were older than the other customers, but were welcomed and
escorted to a booth along the large front window.

With his luck, T.S. thought, someone from Sterling
and Sterling was bound to stroll past and see him nestled in a cozy
gay bar with Herbert Wong. The bank would practically explode with
such a juicy rumor.
But who cared anyway?
T.S. decided, in a
rare flash of defiance at his own tedious conventionality. He was a
millionaire now. He'd do what he pleased.

“That must be him,” Herbert guessed. He nodded toward
a handsome young man at one end of the bar. T.S. recognized him
from the funeral. Seth Rosenbloom had almond-shaped eyes set far
apart and a long angular nose that would have done Michelangelo
proud. His hair was sleekly cut and so black that it gave off blue
highlights under the overhead lamp. His mouth was wide and
generous, though not particularly inviting at the moment. He was
staring down at his drink grimly, his slender shoulders hunched in
unhappiness.

“He is very sad,” Herbert noted.

“Yes. Maybe I can find out why.” Leaving Herbert to
anchor their booth, T.S. approached the bar. In the instant before
he reached the boy, he became acutely aware that he was in a gay
bar and about to tap a strange man on the shoulder. What could he
say to instantly ward off any misunderstanding? His own panic
paralyzed and angered T.S. He was a confident executive, used to
dealing with all sorts of situations. It was nonsense that this
unfamiliar milieu should stymie him.

“Seth Rosenbloom?” T.S. asked, nervously wondering if
other patrons were listening.

“Yes, that's me.” The young man had green eyes framed
by long black lashes. His eyes were reddened.

“Your roommate said I might find you here.”